Birds When the Birds Stopped

Birds When the Birds Stopped Singing When the Birds Stopped Singing is a delicate title for a book about a harsh period of recent Israeli history. The book's focus is on the 2002 Israeli invasion of Ramallah, perhaps inevitably, given that the book is written from the perspective of a resident of this city, and told chronologically. But to fully appreciate the book, one must understand the overall context of the region's intifada.

The uprising of Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza Strip of Israeli-occupied territory, which at the time was increasingly encroached upon by fundamentalist settlers, encouraged many young Palestinians to spontaneously revolt and agitate against their perceived Israeli military occupiers and oppressors.

Although the PLO and other official organizations supported these young Palestinian people, throwing rocks and shouting at the occupying soldiers, rather than tossing bombs and shooting bullets, the intifada was not largely a calculated movement, at least not in all of its first, fleeting efforts of anger at the speed of reform. Thus, this uprising gained certain addition legitimacy for the Palestinian cause, internationally.

The shadow government Palestinian government of then still living Yassar Arafat also benefited from the uprising in a way that it had not from its earlier efforts to gain sympathy and attention through the use of forms of terrorist activities. The Palestinian cause, historically, had long been unpopular, at least in America, because the Palestinians had, in the 1940s resisted a two-state solution.

But the vulnerable position of the unarmed, young, and fresh-faced members of the intifada against armed soldiers stirred up sympathy as the once precarious position of Jewish settlers had before. But alas, the world's sympathy, the author of When the Birds Stopped Signing, suggests, is not always translated into political currency. Where are the real, practical territorial reforms and gains, he asks? The content and structure of the book takes the form of a day-by-day diary, thus stressing the increasingly small and confined, almost prison-like existence of the author.

The author is a human rights lawyer in the occupied city. But his expressed political attitudes, far from setting activist tone, strike the reader as having a rather nebbishy and neurotic (or the Arab version thereof) quality.

At first, he states outright that in the face of horror from all sides, he desires to bury himself in work rather than fight and lead an "ordinary, orderly life." (5) Raja Shehadeh initially liked living in Ramallah because the presence of foreigners provided some protection for his family and his activities, and kept down the presence of the Israeli military's shows of might. The invasion ended all such pretence, and much of the foreign presence.

On the very first day, March 28, 2002, chronicled by the book, the foreigners are in retreat, out of fear, as the Israeli army moves into occupy the man's native city. "A sense of impending catastrophe loomed in the air." (2) a paper calls this the second "Palestinian War of Independence," but at first Raja Shehadeh can only think of the inconveniences this occupation causes him and causes his law firm's efforts that extend far beyond the confines of a single city. (3) The book alternates moments of high comedy with death and tragedy.

One comedic moment occurs early on when some friendly soldiers cheerfully ask the author if he knows of good lodging anywhere, like tourists who have accidentally had their hotel reservations cancelled. (4) "The two of them were very polite," observes the lawyer, approvingly (5) a young scholar, out of a job because of the occupation, works as an incompetent cleaner, breaking Shehadeh's valuable vase, but gluing it together and providing interesting conversation. (6) At first, in the face of such tragedy and absurdity Shehadeh focuses on his duties as a lawyer.

He lives like a prisoner, exercising by walking around his apartment courtyard to blasting music, focusing on when his wife can return from the country, where she is trapped, and using his small space to live in a constructive fashion. As he concentrates on conserving his food supply, distracting himself with his legal work, he makes notes of the few small, positive details present in his cloistered existence, noting that today it was Shostakovich quintets, enthusiastically jotting in his journal, regarding his selection of music for the day's constitutional walk.

But in the final analysis of the issues he raises over the course of the narrative of his life, the author makes clear that he is angry as well as temporarily rendered into a state of emotional.